FatCloud: Tech Partner Spotlight

We invite each of our featured SoftLayer Tech Marketplace Partners to contribute a guest post to the SoftLayer Blog, and this week, we're happy to welcome Ian Miller, CEO of FatCloud. FatCloud is a cloud-enabled application platform that allows enterprises to build, deploy and manage next-generation .NET applications.

'The Cloud' and Agility

As the CEO of a cloud-enabled application platform for the .NET community, I get the same basic question all the time: "What is the cloud?" I'm a consumer of cloud services and a supplier of software that helps customers take advantage of the cloud, so my answer to that question has evolved over the years, and I've come to realize that the cloud is fundamentally about agility. The growth, evolution and adoption of cloud technology have been fueled by businesses that don't want to worry about infrastructure and need to pivot or scale quickly as their needs change.

Because FatCloud is a consumer of cloud infrastructure from Softlayer, we are much more nimble than we'd be if we had to worry about building data centers, provisioning hardware, patching software and doing all the other time-consuming tasks that are involved in managing a server farm. My team can focus on building innovative software with confidence that the infrastructure will be ready for us on-demand when we need it. That peace of mind also happens to be one of the biggest reasons developers turn to FatCloud ... They don't want to worry about configuring the fundamental components of the platform under their applications.

Our customers trust FatCloud's software platform to help them build and scale their .NET applications more efficiently. To do this, we provide a Core Foundation of .NET WCF services that effectively provides the "plumbing" for .NET cloud computing, and we offer premium features like a a distributed NoSQL database, work queue, file storage/management system, content caching and an easy-to-use administration tool that simplifies managing the cloud for our customers. FatCloud makes developing for hundreds of servers as easy as developing for one, and to prove it, we offer a free 3-node developer edition so that potential customers can see for themselves.

The agility of the cloud has the clearest value for a company like ours. In one heavy-duty testing month, we needed 75 additional servers online, and after that testing was over, we needed the elasticity to scale that infrastructure back down. We're able to adjust our server footprint as we balance our computing needs and work within budget constraints. Ten years ago, that would have been overwhelmingly expensive (if not impossible). Today, we're able to do it economically and in real-time. SoftLayer is helping keep FatCloud agile, and FatCloud passes that agility on to our customers.

Companies developing custom software for the cloud, mobile or web using .NET want a reliable foundation to build from, and they want to be able to bring their applications to market faster. With FatCloud, those developers can complete their projects in about half the time it would take them if they were to develop conventionally, and that speed can be a huge competitive differentiator.

The expensive "scale up" approach of buying and upgrading powerful machines for something like SQL Server is out-of-date now. The new kid in town is the "scale out" approach of using low-cost servers to expand infrastructure horizontally. You'll never run into those "scale up" hardware limitations, and you can build a dynamic, scalable and elastic application much more economically. You can be agile.

If you have questions about how FatCloud and SoftLayer make cloud-enabled .NET development easier, send us an email: sales@fatcloud.com. Our team is always happy to share the easy (and free) steps you can take to start taking advantage of the agility the cloud provides.

This guest blog series highlights companies in SoftLayer's Technology Partners Marketplace. These partners have built their businesses on the SoftLayer Platform, and we're excited for them to tell their stories. New partners will be added to the Marketplace each month, so stay tuned for many more come.